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HEALTH AND MEDICAL RESEARCH

600 EMPLOYEES

BENEFITS

• Increased efficiency,

eliminating up to six weeks

of delay for new projects

• Improved scalability and

flexibility of IT infrastructure

through self-service provi-

sioning, reducing storage

request processing time by

up to 75%

• Reduced licensing fees by

50% and gained a 469%

return on investment

HEADQUARTERS

“Support from Red Hat made it much easier to complete the implementation process than we anticipated. And we trusted that if we had any technical issues, the Red Hat team would

be there for us.”

ADAM NYE

INFRASTRUCTURE TEAM LEADER, SAHMRI

Adelaide, Australia

To support the collaborative research needed to solve critical medical challenges, South

Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI) needed a more flexible, scalable IT

environment. The institute deployed Red Hat Cloud Infrastructure, an integrated cloud solution,

to consolidate its infrastructure on a standardized platform and let users to self-provision IT ser-

vices. As a result, researchers can now begin working on research projects immediately, without

waiting weeks for IT resources, and SAHMRI can scale its infrastructure to meet evolving project

needs. In addition, the new solution has helped SAHMRI reduce costs and achieve higher return

on investment (ROI).

SOFTWARE AND SERVICES

Red Hat® Cloud Infrastructure

Red Hat Virtualization

Red Hat CloudForms

Red Hat Satellite

Red Hat Enterprise Linux®

Resilient Storage Add-On

CUSTOMER CASE STUDY

SAHMRI SUPPORTS CRITICAL MEDICAL RESEARCH WITH RED HAT

2redhat.com CUSTOMER CASE STUDY SAHMRI supports critical medical research with Red Hat

OUTDATED INFRASTRUCTURE RESTRICTS GROWTH, CAUSES DELAYS

When experts pool their resources to collaborate on innovative medical research, true insight can

be gained. South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI) works to solve critical

health challenges by uniting its researchers with colleagues from universities and research institu-

tions around the world. Founded in 2009, the nonprofit has grown rapidly, adding personnel and

expanding to additional key research areas to create positive health outcomes for patients and

improve research for the medical community.

But SAHMRI’s success was inhibited by its outsourced IT infrastructure. With a fragmented

network — supported by several providers — and an ineffective managed service model, the institute

struggled to meet users’ needs cost-effectively. After submitting a request for server resources,

new applications, or storage to the appropriate outsourced organization, researchers often had

to wait weeks for a response. By the time researchers received the requested IT services, federal

grants and competitive research funding for specific projects — such as creation of an international

registry to track joint replacement surgeries and outcome data — would be nearly expired.

To improve network resiliency, responsiveness, performance, and software licensing costs, SAHMRI

sought to consolidate its IT infrastructure on a standardized platform. After considering its available

technical skills and evolving business requirements, the organization decided to implement a cloud-

based infrastructure.

“We wanted one tool that would support multiple technologies while allowing us to scale our IT land-

scape rapidly and easily,” said Adam Nye, infrastructure team leader at SAHMRI. “We also needed a

solution that enabled users to provision their own services.”

SUPPORTED OPEN SOURCE INFRASTRUCTURE OUTPERFORMS PROPRIETARY SOLUTIONS

After performing a cost analysis of products from Microsoft, VMware, and Red Hat, SAHMRI chose to

build its new IT infrastructure using Red Hat’s more cost-effective solutions. In addition, Red Hat’s

solutions performed 25% faster than another vendor’s products in a pilot project. SAHMRI’s famil-

iarity with Red Hat’s products and reputation for excellent customer support also contributed to the

institute’s decision.

“Our IT professionals have a commitment to the open source community and a passion for Red Hat,”

said Nye. “Red Hat shares and collaborates with the technology community in the same way that

SAHMRI shares research with the medical community.”

SAHMRI decided to implement Red Hat Cloud Infrastructure, an Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)

solution, to improve user access to data and IT resources. The company deployed several of the

integrated Red Hat technologies in Red Hat Cloud Infrastructure, including:

• Red Hat Virtualization provides access to web applications and a service catalog.

• Red Hat CloudForms lets researchers provision their own resources and services.

• Red Hat Satellite supports configuration management.

In addition, the institute deployed Red Hat Enterprise Linux Resilient Storage Add-On to store

research data in highly available storage resources.

“We’re grateful to our Red Hat team for

keeping us updated on new products

and technology enhancements and

showing us how we can get more value from

our Red Hat solutions. Without this guidance,

we wouldn’t have experienced so much

success in modernizing our IT infrastructure.”

ADAM NYE

INFRASTRUCTURE TEAM

LEADER, SAHMRI

3redhat.com CUSTOMER CASE STUDY SAHMRI supports critical medical research with Red Hat

SAHMRI conducted a short proof of concept, followed by a six-week test period, for this solution.

After an additional 30-day review, a two-person team completed implementation of the new cloud

infrastructure — including migration of all existing environments from Microsoft Hyper-V and VMware

ESX — in just three months.

“Support from Red Hat made it much easier to complete the implementation process than we antici-

pated,” said Nye. “And we trusted that if we had any technical issues, the Red Hat team would be

there for us.”

NEW ENVIRONMENT IMPROVES PERFORMANCE AND COSTS

INCREASED EFFICIENCY

With the self-provisioning features of the new environment, SAHMRI researchers can now start work

as soon as they receive a new project grant, rather than waiting for IT to provision services.

“Researchers can effectively start that day, eliminating as much as six weeks of wait time from the

process,” said Nye. “They’re happy to be able to focus on their core business without worrying about

service provisioning or resource availability.”

In addition, the new solution processes storage requests quickly, with storage services now

operating 50%-75% faster than in the legacy system. As a result, users can access data faster

and work more efficiently.

IMPROVED FLEXIBILITY AND SCALABILITY

The flexibility of Red Hat’s cloud technology lets SAHMRI scale its IT infrastructure to meet evolving

project needs. Researchers can quickly deploy new web servers and research applications to create

the technology environment they need.

As a result, SAHMRI’s IT team spends less time on these routine tasks and can provide more valuable,

consulting-based services to researchers.

REDUCED COSTS FOR GREATER RETURN ON INVESTMENT (ROI)

SAHMRI has achieved quantifiable savings from its investment in Red Hat Cloud Infrastructure.

Using the new solution has helped the institute reduce licensing fees for operating systems and

applications by 50%. In addition, the streamlined environment is easier to manage. As a result,

SAHMRI saved AU$100,000 on infrastructure support costs.

“Instead of requiring individual experts for each aspect of the infrastructure, such as networking,

storage, and servers, we now have a smaller infrastructure team in which each person is able to

manage the entire environment,” said Nye. “We’re getting more valuable contributions from each

member of our staff.”

One year after deployment, SAHMRI had recovered all related costs of implementing and migrating

to the new environment. Working with an independent assessment organization, SAHMRI calculated

a ROI of 469% from Red Hat Cloud Infrastructure.

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SUCCESS BUILDS CONFIDENCE IN INNOVATION

SAHMRI continues to evaluate its IT environment and partner with Red Hat to discover opportunities

to gain greater efficiency through technology.

“We’re grateful to our Red Hat team for keeping us updated on new products and technology

enhancements and showing us how we can get more value from our Red Hat solutions,” said

Nye. “Without this guidance, we wouldn’t have experienced so much success in modernizing

our IT infrastructure.”

SAHMRI’s use of Red Hat Cloud Infrastructure has helped researchers and other internal business

users recognize the stability, security, and cost savings delivered by the institute’s new environment.

Each success brings new requests for additional services and applications to help SAHMRI meet its

research mission.

“We’ve noticed rising confidence in Red Hat’s solutions and support, which is leading to expanded

applications, requests for new service templates, and other valuable offerings that can help

researchers meet their goals,” said Nye. “It’s highly rewarding for our IT team to be able to

support this innovative research and add value to our business.”

ABOUT SAHMRI

Based in Adelaide, Australia, South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute supports

research that focuses on improving the prevention, treatment, and diagnosis of health issues

such as chronic disease, obesity, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and mental health. SAHMRI

relies on dynamic collaborations among its staff of 600 and a network of professionals from

universities and research institutions around the world to improve health outcomes and positively

impact the global community.

CUSTOMER CASE STUDY SAHMRI supports critical medical research with Red Hat